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On The Road With The ECS – Vancouver 5/19/12

The Emerald City Supporters march on BC Place, home of the Vancouver Whitecaps, prior to Saturday's game

I love away games. Always have. Growing up, going to Ipswich home games was a 4+ hour round trip from my home in South London, so a lot of our away games were easier trips than our home games, particularly with the glut of league clubs there are in London. I grew to prefer the away games over the home games. Being a part of a smaller group in enemy territory, you tend to bond together with your fellow fans much more than when you are at home. Plus it tends to be the real hardcore fans who follow the team on the road, so the away section is usually a noisy one. You also get more of a feeling that your voice makes a difference when it’s part of a smaller group. My favorite away trips (and maybe I need a psychologist to explain this one) are the ones where the crowd is intimidating; I don’t mean intimidating in the “I’m going to get the wotsits kicked out of me after the game” kind of way (I’ve been in that position, too, and that is not fun at all, although my fears have thankfully never been realized), but intimidating in terms of the sheer force of noise that is being raised for your opponent. Places like Leeds and Sunderland are fantastic for that; part of you is just in awe of the noise, but then you just puff out your chest and do your bit for the boys anyway, and feel all the more proud for having done so.

In the context of Seattle Sounders soccer, following the team on the road also provides one other thing that we don’t get here, other than when Portland or Vancouver come to visit; banter between the two opposing sets of supporters. This back-and-forth can be one of the most fun and exciting parts of being at a soccer game. One set of fans gets a song going, and then the other set tries to overwhelm it with an even louder song, which only inspires the first group to make their song even louder. It makes for a great environment. (as an aside, I know a lot of people think it’s unfair that Portland and Vancouver are getting 1,500 tickets for their games here, while we only get 800 for our games there, but for me, I just can’t wait for those games. And besides, if 50,000+ of us can’t outsing 1,500 of them, then shame on us). The Sounders regularly takes 200+ fans to places like LA, San Jose or Salt Lake City. Some other trips can also attract big numbers – we took over 200 fans to DC last month. But even with smaller numbers you can really make yourselves heard. I was among the 50 or so Sounders fans in Colorado last year, and I really believe that our group help drive the team on to that victory after the horrific injury to Steve Zakuani. While we obviously didn’t outsing the home fans on that occasion, we certainly made enough noise to be heard by the players, and you could tell by the players’ reaction to us at the end that they really appreciated it.

Anyway, although I have done a couple of Sounders road trips before, this was my first time going on the road to a Cascadia derby, and I was stoked. My son and I decided to make a weekend of it, travelling up to Canada on the ECS bus, but then skipping off after the game and spending the weekend in Vancouver before taking the train back on Sunday night. By the way, the cost of doing this as a day trip with the ECS was a paltry $70, including the match ticket – incredibly affordable. The ECS buses were leaving from three locations (Seattle, Tacoma or Bellingham), so we rocked up, all bright and bleary-eyed, at Northgate Park and Ride at 6:30am, ready to depart at 7am. The bus journey up was very pleasant; the 2011 US Open Cup final was showing on the TV screens, which is always pleasant viewing. All of the buses met up at a rest-stop before the Canadian border, and from there we rode up in convoy to BC Place. The border crossing was surprisingly easy; in fact, the only people they seemed to take an interest in were my son and I, who were the only ones on the bus who are not US citizens. We rolled on through in no time.

The Emerald City Supporters meet up at the Custer rest stop, just before the Canadian border

Once we arrived at BC Place, there was a short wait in the car park (which rapidly turned into a dance party) before we marched into the stadium. As with all the Cascadia games, the rules stated that we had to arrive two hours prior to the game; for this game, this was actually quite a good thing, as it meant that we could sit and watch the UEFA Champions League Final on the big screen in BC Place (the second-largest center-mounted big screen in North America, according to the match program). It was a very enjoyable way to pass the time as we enjoyed our beers; these beers, incidentally, were served in what pretty much amounted to a sippy cup, complete with flap over the hole to prevent spillage. Bless those Canadians – they really commit to not wasting their beer. Anyway, the Champions League Final was cut-off before the penalty shootout, but they did show it in the concourse for anyone who was desperate to see how it ended. All in all, it was a nice way to lead up to the game, and kudos to the Whitecaps FO for doing it just for the Sounders fans (given that it was basically only us in the stadium for most of it), even if their description of the day as being a ‘double-header’ in the program seemed a little off-base.

Bryan Moore of the Emerald City Supporters enjoys a beer from his Vancouver Whitecaps sippy cup.

After a slightly bizarre moment, where the Whitecaps FO apparently suddenly realized they had put us all in the wrong section and had to move us all, we came to the start of the game. I thought this was a thoroughly enjoyable game, full of enterprising, attacking soccer from both sides. Frankly, we were pretty out of sorts in the first half, and were lucky not to be two or three goals down at half time. Whatever Sigi said at half time (and I’m guessing he had a lot to say), it clearly worked as the Sounders were a totally different team after the break. In spite of this, it looked like we were going to come home empty-handed after Camilo’s slightly fortunate free-kick goal; a good delivery, for sure, but Canadian TV apparently thought it was a deliberate shot, which was slightly laughable. But then Montero came up with yet another masterpiece right at the end to give us a point that we probably just about deserved based on our second half performance. We even had a good chance to nick it in stoppage time with Zach Scott’s header, but that would have been very harsh on the Whitecaps, who are clearly a much-improved team from last year and played very well in this game. I think there’s a good chance Vancouver will reach the playoffs come the end of the season (but then I’m the guy who had Toronto as a dark horse to win the Eastern Conference this year, so don’t get too excited, Whitecaps fans). On the whole, a point on the road against good opposition is always a decent result, especially when you concede first, so I was pretty happy. Certainly, in the context of the Cascadia Cup, this was a good result for us; with Portland’s struggles, the two games in Vancouver will likely be our toughest games in this year’s tournament, so grabbing the draw out of this one was good news for us.

The ECS welcome the Sounders team out onto the field as the UEFA Champions League final plays on the screen overhead

I have to say, BC Place is a really nice stadium. Only the lower tier is open for soccer but they put a narrow canvas roof where the bottom tier ends so that you can’t really see the empty seats above and it ‘feels’ like the stadium is full. This seems to really help keep the noise inside the stadium, giving it a great atmosphere, even if it was a little echoey at times. The Vancouver supporters’ group, the Southsiders, were apparently pretty quiet when we visited last September, but they were definitely making some good noise this time around. The only slightly negative thing to see was the presence of an ACES banner next to the Southsiders banner; I don’t know if the Southsiders were responsible for its presence there, but if they were, I find that pretty disappointing as I thought the Southsiders had more class than that. Incidentally, there were also a couple of people in the section next to us waving Timbers Army scarves while supporting the Whitecaps; not sure what that was all about. Assuming these people were actually from Portland, it seems to me that they should be concentrating their efforts on supporting their own team, but hey, each to their own I suppose. Anyway, I was proud of the support of the ECS in this game; we kept the noise going and never gave up. The raucous rendition of “it’s all gone quiet over there!” after Montero’s goal was priceless.

Some match action from BC Place

After the game, we were supposed to be held back in our section for 20 minutes while the Whitecaps fans cleared the stadium, but apparently nobody told the security staff and they just let everyone walk on out together. There were no issues at all, though – the Whitecaps fans we met couldn’t have been more friendly.

After the game, Elliott and I headed down to the Blarney Stone, an Irish bar in Gastown, to meet up with some of our ECS/Barra Fuerza Verde brethren. Again, there were a bunch of Whitecaps fans in there too, but it couldn’t have been more relaxed. The Blarney Stone was celebrating its 40th anniversary so they had all sorts of stuff going on; live bands, bagpipes, stilt-walkers – all sorts. It was a real party atmosphere, which really fitted the spirit of the day perfectly.

Members of La Barra Fuerza Verde, the Latino arm of the ECS, enjoy postmatch at the Blarney Stone in downtown Vancouver

After we left the Blarney Stone, Elliott and I went up the Vancouver Lookout, which is a viewing deck at the top of the Harbor Centre building. As we were buying our tickets, the guy behind the desk saw my ECS shirt and asked if we had enjoyed the game. He had been at work all afternoon, but I guess he had his radio under the desk and sneaked a listen to the game whenever it got quiet. He was all, “man, I thought we had you guys this time, but you just can’t keep that Fredy Montero down!” I loved the enthusiasm of the guy, and this was a recurring theme throughout the weekend; it seemed like EVERYONE knew that the Whitecaps were playing the Sounders and couldn’t wait to talk to us about it. It was an interesting contrast with my previous trips to Chicago and Denver, where nobody I spoke to even seemed to realize that their cities had an MLS team, let alone who they were playing against. This, to me, is a great measure of where MLS teams stand in their cities and what their prospects truly are. Although they are our rivals, I would really love to see the Whitecaps have a good year and hopefully be able to open the whole of that stadium for their games in the future. That would be a great thing indeed.

If you ever get the chance to travel to an away game then you should totally go for it. Make a weekend of it – it’s a great way to see North America. The Sounders front office leave the organization of away trips to the ECS, which is slightly alien approach to me, but which actually works great because the ECS is so well organized (better organized than a lot of MLS FOs – I still get calls 3-4 times a year from the Chicago Fire FO trying to sell me tickets after I attended the Sounders game in the windy city in 2010. Every time, I tell them it was a one-off visit, but they just can’t seem to help themselves. Their phone bill must be horrendous). With the exception of the Cascadia games there will always be tickets available, and you don’t need to be an ECS member to get one. The ECS folks do a phenomenal job making sure that everyone has a good time, whether you’re a singing/pogoing kind of person or not. Everyone is made welcome. Depending on the location of the stadium, there is usually a meet-up point arranged at a local establishment, or a tailgate outside the stadium. Each away trip has a thread on the ECS forum where the travel folks post the details, and where fans can liaise:

Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate.

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Simon MoyseBorn in London, Simon joined the Emerald City Supporters after he moved to Snohomish in 2004. He watches games with his son Elliott.